honor surviving American and Australian veterans who fought in this battle,

highlight the service and sacrifice of our servicemen and women,

celebrate the ‘First 100 Years of Mateship’ between the United States and Australia - fighting side by side in every major military conflict since WWI, and

most importantly raise funds to launch a new American - Australian Veterans' Scholarship Fund.

LAUNCH OF NEW AMERICAN - AUSTRALIAN VETERANS SCHOLARSHIP FUND (VSF)

The new VSF will be a dedicated scholarship that will provide a new generation of warriors with the opportunity to pursue undergraduate or postgraduate educational opportunities, and will support directional scholarship grants from Australia to U.S., and U.S. to Australia.

The Fund will have a particular focus on providing support and educational opportunities to disabled veterans.

The launch of the new VSF is made possible thanks to the generous support of the Dinner's Commemorative Chairman - Mr. Wes Bush, and Founding Corporate Partner - Northrop Grumman Corporation.

RESERVATIONS:

Proceeds raised from the Coral Sea Commemorative Dinner will be used to create and launch a new American – Australian Veterans’ Scholarship Fund.

May 4, 2017 is the 75th anniversary of the critical Battle of the Coral Sea (May 4-8, 1942), which inflicted the first defeat suffered by the Empire of Japan and stopped the looming Japanese invasion of Australia.

Aided with early intelligence from Australian military decoding a key message: “The objective will be to restrict enemy fleet movements by means of attacks on the north coast of Australia,” joint American and Australian naval forces were in place to intercept the invading fleet. This was the first naval engagement where opposing sides remained entirely out of visual range, but the resulting losses showed how critical naval aviation would be in the future of warfare.

The Allies lost 543 servicemen, 66 aircraft, the carrier the USS Lexington, the destroyer Sims and the oiler Neosho. Though the Yorktown was damaged, it was repaired in time to join the fray at Midway, only four weeks later.

The Empire of Japan lost 1,074 killed or wounded, 104 aircraft, the carrier Shoho, 2 destroyers and 9 other vessels, and their carrier Shokaku was damaged and denied to the Japanese fleet at Midway.

Strategically, the hard earned victory in the Coral Sea enabled both the critical Allied success at the Battle of Midway on June 4, as well as the first successful land invasion in the Pacific at Guadalcanal on August 7, 1942.

The battle is widely considered by many as, ‘the battle that saved Australia’.